Bloodletting remained a
popular medical remedy for all sorts of ailments during the nineteenth
century. Here are three multi-bladed mechanical scarificators and examples
of bloodletting cups that were used with the scarificators. When wet
cupping, the skin surface would be cut with a scarificator and cups
would be applied. A vacuum would be created within the cup by exhausting
the air, either by a flame or by a pump, and with a tight seal formed against
the skin, the blood would be drawn into the cup.

Dry cupping used
the same idea for creating a vacuum within a cup, but a scarificator was not
used and the skin was not broken, so no blood actually flowed into the cups.

The square-shaped scarificators
to the left and center are typical of early nineteenth examples from Austria and
Germany. The octagonal-shaped scarificator to the right is typical of ones
from America and England. Two of the scarificators have their original
pressed-leather cases.